


Scarred for Life-A Story of Hope, Heartbreak & Healing

by GleefulPoppet



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: First Kiss, Glee - Freeform, Healing, M/M, Scar, Soulmates, crisscolfer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21996421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GleefulPoppet/pseuds/GleefulPoppet
Summary: Darren and Chris learn that something may scar you for life but most scars are a reminder of what it means to be alive and that healing is real.[Authors Update: I want to be very clear that I don't have an opinion one way or the other about CC. As a brand new fan to Glee at the time I wrote this story, it was one of the ways I dealt with all my Klaine feels. I support both D and C to live their lives as they see fit. I no longer write CC, but I love parts of these stories so I'm leaving them. This is a work of fiction/fantasy and nothing more, it is not meant to encroach on Darren or Chris’s real life.]
Relationships: Chris Colfer & Darren Criss, Chris Colfer/Darren Criss, Crisscolfer - Relationship
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	Scarred for Life-A Story of Hope, Heartbreak & Healing

**Author's Note:**

> As always this is not meant to encroach on Darren or Chris’s real life. It’s a work of fiction pure and simple, based loosely on people that I don’t actually know. Please accept it as just the fictional story it is. {Posted earlier this year on Tumblr gleefulpoppet} 
> 
> WARNING: This story addresses bearding.
> 
> ————————

## 

##  **Sunday Night [2010]**

A pizza box was on the table alongside a few empty diet coke cans and some other snacks and beverages. One of the Star Wars movies was playing on the flat screen. You might think it just looked like another typical Sunday night at Chris’s apartment. He had always looked forward to these nights. Sunday was his only day off. He loved to eat anything he wanted and just lounge on the couch by himself for a few hours. Trying desperately to rest from the utter exhaustion he felt, trying to reset for another 80+ hour workweek ahead.

But lately, Sunday nights have been nothing close to ordinary, no matter how routine the setting looks. No one is actually paying attention to the movie, and there is an awful lot of laughing (borderline giggling) going on. If you walked in the room from the front door, you might see the top of two men’s heads from the back of the couch where they are sitting, but then again, you might not. The last few weeks have turned into some pretty good wrestling matches, pillow fights, lightsaber battles, impromptu dance-offs, and just general restlessness. It’s like the two guys can’t sit still for too long, or they might actually have to acknowledge the growing “awkwardness” between them.

“Oh no, you didn’t!“ Chris screeched as a pillow hit him hard, square in the face. 

He launched across the couch and tackled Darren down. They landed in a mess of tangled limbs, both of them laughing hysterically. Taking full advantage of his new position, Chris started to mercilessly tickle Darren right in that one special place in his ribs that made him weak and laugh even harder. For a split second, he paused and realized how weird it was that he knew about that spot, wasn’t that sort of intimate knowledge?

Unfortunately for Chris, that millimeter of a second cost him his advantage. Darren fully took control and grabbed Chris by the waist and rolled them both over, pinning Chris into the couch, his hands now holding Chris’s above his head. Darren had a grin a mile wide on his face as he looked down, and for a moment, he got lost in Chris’s eyes. It had happened before, the guy’s eyes are insanely gorgeous after all, but this was like Alice in Wonderland down the rabbit hole lost. He realized that he might never find his way back, and he didn’t think he ever wanted to. Suddenly neither one of them was laughing, and the silence was pressing in on them, both of them still breathing a little heavy from the pillow fight and tickling.

Chris’s breath caught in his chest, and a small whimper escaped his lips. He wondered if he should feel embarrassed by it but, all he could think about were how Darren’s wonder-filled, beautiful eyes were staring so intensely at _**him**_. He quickly shut his eyes and turned his head to the right. His body went tense in a moment of awe-struck panic. 

Darren was suddenly now staring at the left side of Chris’s long neck and that scar. He couldn’t breathe. That scar was his undoing, the final push he needed to go right over the edge of these feelings that had been building up for so long. He slowly let go of Chris’s hands. He laid himself down on Chris’s chest, propping himself up with one elbow next to Chris’s face as he brought his left-hand down to rub his thumb across the scar, his other fingers brushing the back of his neck. They both inhaled deeply at the intimacy in the touch, but neither of them dared move. 

He kept rubbing his thumb gently over it, feeling like he had to memorize every detail of it.

“Chris? Tell me about this scar…please” the question came out in barely a whisper.

“Hmmm? My scar, _ummm_ …” and with eyes still closed, he quietly told the story about a childhood illness that had kept him in the hospital for much too long and a few other details he could barely remember right now. Each word getting caught in his chest as he tried to remember how to speak with Darren touching him like that.

“It’s beautiful, Chris, a symbol of your incredible life and all you’ve been through,” Darren whispered these words while he was moving closer and closer to that gorgeous scar, and without realizing what he was doing, he was brushing his lips against it. After a few incredibly light, tender passes with his lips and breath, he then pressed harder, kissing Chris’s neck over and over along the line forever etched into Chris’s skin.

Chris’s hands came up around Darren’s waist and held him tight, rubbing his thumbs up and down, trying to release some of what he was feeling through touch. That was Darren’s second undoing of the night. He pressed his lips now further up Chris’s neck higher and higher, across his jawline and down to his chin, pressing harder and harder until Chris couldn’t take it any longer and finally turned his head towards Darren’s lips. Darren lightly grazed his lips over Chris’s several times without pressing. This had been building up for so long, and somehow at this moment, there was a silent agreement between them that they were in no rush to get it over with.

Darren rubbed his thumb over the scar a few more times, and then he finally pressed his lips into Chris’s, firmly but tenderly. They both let out a breath through their nose and gasped almost simultaneously. It was both shocking and also a release of unspoken tension between them. They kissed each other with curious passion, getting used to each other’s lips, the way their breath felt mixed up together, the shape of each other’s lips. Each of them paying attention to how the other responded to everything they were doing to the other. How Darren’s back arched when Chris’s hand had found its way to the back of Darren’s hair, the way Chris had shuddered and held on tighter when Darren nipped at Chris’s bottom lip, taking it into his mouth.

They kissed like this for a long time. It seemed like hours. You can never have another first kiss with someone, and as with most things in their life, they seemed to be in sync with knowing that. There was intense passion and yearning building underneath each of them (they are only human after all), but they weren’t going to give in to it, not yet, and definitely not right now. 

Finally, Darren pulled away and kissed his way back to the scar on Chris’s neck. Kissing it a few more times before he lifted himself up and looked down at Chris, whose eyes opened for the first time since they started this. They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment realizing the magnitude of what just happened. They had a silent conversation with their eyes that they were sure they had just fallen madly, deeply in love and that they would never be able to know each other or love each other enough in this one lifetime, but they were sure going to try. 

They burst out laughing again, and Chris said, “Best pillow fight ever!” as they wrestled and tickled each other once again.

##  **Sunday Night, Again [Three years later]**

“Dammit, Darren, please…mmmm….you have to stop!” Chris said breathlessly. 

He was pinned up against a wall in a dark corner room by the stage, held there by Darren’s body. To say that they were hot and bothered would be an understatement. Their suits were already disheveled from all the stolen touches, and they were both hoping that some of those biting, hard sucking kisses on their skin weren’t going to leave any marks where anyone could see them tonight. 

“I _am_ stopping… see?” Darren said with a chuckle right up against the scar on Chris’s neck. He then licked the length of the scar with the tip of his tongue and started nipping at it. 

“Oh, my, go–…, Dare…we’ve… got to stop, oh, that feels so good— _mhmm_.” Chris’s skin was tingling all over.

“I can’t help it, _that scar is so hot,_ baby and. I. want. you. now.” Darren moaned out.

They both got turned on by making out in these crazy situations. In an interview once Chris said he loved “controlled danger,” and this was pretty close because they absolutely could not be seen alone together tonight. 

They heard the hustle and bustle of the stage being set, and presenters had to line up and “places everyone” was going to be said soon. They had to pull out of this crazy moment they were rarely allowed to have outside the privacy of their own home. They finally jumped away from each other and started to fix their suits. However, it was going to take a minute to cool down from that. There was no way to hide how excited they were. They looked at each other in the wrecked state they were in and started laughing. Chris rolled his eyes, and then Darren had to turn around, closing his eyes imagining a _really cold_ shower.

##  **A Dark Night [Six years later]**

Darren was sitting on the couch, with his legs over Chris’s lap and his head on his chest, one arm around Chris’s waist and the other one absently rubbing over that all too familiar, yet sacred, place on Chris’s neck. His fingers tracing absently over the scar as they had done so many thousands of times over the last nine years. He has it memorized by sight and touch.

They were both trying to calm down. Deep, involuntary shudders going through each of their bodies from the crying and the adrenaline of the epic screaming match they had both just lived through. They rarely got in fights like that, and even this one wasn’t directed at each other, not really. It was more the situation they found themselves in. Both feeling absolutely helpless, scared, so angry, and there was more than a little bitterness there for so many reasons. 

They were caught in the most dangerous game of their lives, being used as pawns in a larger chess game they had no way of escaping from. The “Public Relations” had gotten out of control the last few years, but this was the final straw. The PR team finally did the one thing that Chris was sure he couldn’t survive emotionally. Darren was getting “married” to a woman for all the world to see, and that was that. The villains in their life had finally won and plunged them headfirst into their worst nightmare. 

As Chris sat with his head on the back of the couch, being held by Darren while his body trembled from the shock, he wondered how they could possibly endure this. He silently pled with the universe to give them strength.

  
*** 

The day inevitably arrived where Darren had to leave for New Orleans. They held each other tightly for so long at the front door, tears streaming down their cheeks. Darren leaned into the scar on Chris’s neck, kissed the length of it, gently rubbed it with his fingers, and walked out the door. 

_Chris knew he would feel the ghost of those fingers slipping away from his neck for days_. But that feeling gave him the resolve to stand up and fight harder for the life he wanted. So he stood tall, took a deep breath, knowing that he would do whatever he could to support the love of his life through this no matter the cost. He knew what he wanted his future to look like, and he was going to get it.

He texted Darren:

_This may scar us for life, but most scars are a reminder of what it means to be alive, and that healing is real. We’re going to make it through this, and I will proudly stand behind you in the shadows until we can “walk into the sunshine together” (cheeze-yeah, I just went there). I Love you._

Darren looked at his phone and started to sob. He loved that man with all his heart and realized _once and for all_ that they could do anything together, no matter how deep the wound inflicted on them.

##  **Last Night [present time-ish]**

“Honey, I’m home!” Darren playfully yells as he walks into the house with his suitcase. 

Months have passed since the worst day of their lives, but they are hanging in there. The “PR trips” have been numerous and absolutely the definition of hell. It’s tough on each of them in different ways, but they are making it work, and that is all they ask of each other right now. If anything, it’s taught them how precious time is, and they soak each other up every chance they get to be home together.

As Darren walks further into the house, he hears a Star Wars movie on the television. When he turns the corner, he sees a pizza box on the table, a couple of diet cokes, and… all of a sudden, he’s got a pillow coming straight at him, launched from somewhere in the vicinity of the couch. There’s also a fair amount of laughing coming from there too.

He grabs the pillow that just hit him squarely in the face and jumps over the couch, tackling Chris. They tickle and wrestle and hug each other tightly until Darren dives into Chris’s neck and finds his favorite spot, kissing along the scar whispering “I missed you” over and over. They spend the rest of the night playfully making out, eating pizza, watching movies, and trying to let go of some of the emotional stress they are both under by remembering simpler times. It’s only a few stitches in everything that is wrong, but for now, this is as perfect a night as they could hope for.

##  **A Night in the Not too Distant Future**

They are at another awards show, at a table together, sitting as close as they want, and neither of them could care less who sees them–finally, together in public. They are talking, laughing, and cracking up at inside jokes, having silent conversations with their eyes, conversing with other people they are sitting with, and they’ve never been so happy. 

Several times throughout the evening, Darren absently reaches over and brushes the scar on Chris’s neck out of affection and habit but also to offer comfort to both of them. That scar was their beginning. It’s a reminder to both of them of where they started and just how far they’ve come together. But now, at this moment, they also know what it means to **begin to heal** , finally free to be them fully and completely.

[story was written in 2019]


End file.
